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Jon M. Chu Heading to Sony Pictures' 'Masters of the Universe' Next

Big news for Justin Bieber: Never Say Never director Jon M. Chu. While his first big action film, G.I. Joe sequel Retaliation languishes in 3D-conversion, studio-mandated-delay hell until next March, Chu is lining up other projects. Deadline says he's now "in talks" to direct the live-action Masters of the Universe movie, in the works at Sony Pictures and Escape Artists. We've reported on numerous updates related to a He-Man and Masters of the Universe movie years ago, but weren't sure if/when we'd ever get to see one for a while. Apparently Mattel really likes what Jon Chu can do with a classic toy line-turned-movie. Read on!

From Deadline's update, they say that "talks are just getting underway with Chu, who is in the middle of a 3D conversion on G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and is preparing to shoot a couple of new scenes for the film." While we know Escape Artists' partners Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal and Steve Tisch are producing, we're not sure about who's name is on the draft of the script they're working with. "Escape Artists sparked to a strong script turned in by the writing team of Alex Litvak and Mike Finch… The scribes developed the script under the title Grayskull, but it has gone back to the Mattel brand." To me, that sounds like they're developing it with Chu and seeing what direction he wants to go, but we'll have to keep a close eye on things from here.

Some might recall, Warner Bros was developing the He-Man: Masters of the Universe movie back in 2008 at Joel Silver's production company. They lost the rights to it in late 2009, which means it went back to Mattel to develop on their own. Now things have ended up at Escape Artists/Sony Pictures. This Masters of the Universe project, based on the Mattel toy line introduced in 1982, "revolves around He-Man, a prince who transforms into a warrior and becomes the last hope for a magical world that has been ravaged by the sinister Skeletor." Hope they go all out with this one. Excited to see what Chu can do with He-Man?

Reader Feedback - 12 Comments

Crap, crap and more crap! Now, if they call it Homos of the Universe, that would make sense Oh, did sayI Master fo the Univerise is crap?

Dan Dan The Garbage Man on Jul 30, 2012

3

I would love James Cameron to ditch making Avatar sequels and make a Masters of the Universe movie instead! Rather than a thousand blue guys running around all looking the same, the performance capture would be perfect for all the awesome creatures of the MOTU world. Throw in some Captain America style fx to make Prince Adam scrawny in comparison to the buff He-Man and this cool cartoon would get the epic treatment it deserves! Well, that's my fantasy anyway...